Porcelain personalities

Marilyn Houchen has always had an eye for fashion. She was a sewing teacher and worked in the garment industry in the 1970s. Houchen is even a graduate of Chambre Syndicale de La Couture Parisienne, a renowned fashion school in Paris.

But the styles of the ’70s were drab and unexciting to Houchen. She wasn’t in the world of high fashion, and Houchen struggled with making clothes for unseen clientele.

Her solution?

“I decided to make the people to go with the clothes,” Houchen said.

Houchen began sculpting her own 27-inch-tall porcelain fashion dolls in 1979. When she tried to sell the dolls to Cartier, the woman behind the counter said she didn’t even want to see them.

Houchen brought it out anyway, and her persistence paid off.

“She said, ‘I must have it,’” Houchen recalled.

Marilyn’s tiny models began appearing in Cartier displays, and it would only be a matter of time before the Huntington Beach resident made her first model of Hollywood royalty.

It was Marilyn Monroe in her iconic white dress from “The Seven Year Itch.” Houchen had found her calling.

Since she first laboriously sculpted Monroe’s celebrated visage, Houchen has produced more than 500 remarkably accurate celebrity dolls.

Houchen works with her cousin Angela Wolfe to produce the models. The tandem has crafted the likenesses of a laundry list of notable personalities.

They’ve made classic silver screen heartthrobs like Mae West, Jean Harlow and Audrey Hepburn, and Hollywood heroes like Elvis Presley, Jack Nicholson and Brad Pitt. Houchen and Wolfe have immortalized the likes of Lucille Ball, Cher, John Travolta and Liza Minnelli in plaster.

“It just snowballed,” Houchen said.

The detail that goes into each doll is astonishing.

The walls of their Huntington Beach studios are lined with books about celebrities and celebrity fashion. Wolfe and Houchen pore over volumes of pictures of each celebrity and watch their movies.

The goal is to replicate the celebrities as closely as possible — down to the tattoos.

Houchen has no formal instruction, instead relying on self-taught ceramics and sculpting techniques. She meticulously shapes the faces and bodies, ensuring the shapes are accurate. She also cuts and sews the outfits, even the underwear.

Wolfe constructs the shoes over the little feet as well as the display stands. Each stand is unique to the doll. The diminutive duo of Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, for instance, stand on interlocking Rolling Stones tongue stands.

She is also the prop mistress, recreating any item her mini-stars might need. Wolfe’s area is a workshop that can miniaturize just about anything. Wolfe custom-crafted the Stones’ guitars and perfected Keith Richards’ outfit down to the skull ring he’s worn for more than three decades.

Because so much time and effort is put into the pieces, it’s hard to let some go.

“It’s like adoption, they need to go to a good home,” Wolfe said.

But the specialty dolls are in demand, often sold to private collectors or at trade shows. Which is good news because Wolfe and Houchen don’t have plans to close up shop any time soon.

There are corkboards lined with pictures and ideas. Among them are Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash and Reese Witherspoon as June Carter in “Walk the Line.”

With an ever-changing crop of stars rising and fading, there will never be a shortage of famous likenesses to make. Which is fine by Houchen

“We just want to do everybody,” she said.

Who: Marilyn Houchen and Angela Wolfe

What: Star Dolls

When: Appointments to see the dolls can be made by phone.

Information: Call (714) 895-8581 or visit www.marilynhouchen stardolls.com